About Me

Monday, 2 September 2013

Sendtember???

...is the plan, theory, dream, inspiration, aspiration, ambition. I've sated my need for exploration at Pfalz and Orkney, abandoned Lewis to the weather gods and postphoned Berdorf until hopefully crisp autumn conditions. On my recent jaunt with PJ I found I was able to cope equally with spreading my considerable load across sandy decaying choss and hauling it upwards on small pebbly crimps and flakes, leading to the possible conclusion that I am climbing okay again and might be able to capitalise on that. Of course the forecast is very mixed, especially in North West Scotland, and the sometimes reliable Indian Summer is nowhere in sight, but then again it's cooled down a lot, it's getting out of midge season, and in the meantime I am also syked for training thank fuck.

On the subject of training I have tried to think how I can balance having fun doing it but also tailoring it to what might just be a little bit useful for the remaining routes I want to do. Which ends up like this:

....which leads to the conclusion that apart from the usual very obvious aspects to train like falling practise, falling practise, and falling practise, general fitness and general stamina, there are common themes to train:

Finger/crimp strength - many routes are on small fingery holds that I haven't trained so much.Static face climbing stamina - many routes are maybe not so pumpy but have either enough thin climbing or bold climbing that necessitates hanging around long enough that I need to train hanging around long enough.Steep wall endurance - some routes are obviously steeper and safer but pumpier and need a shorter term climbing endurance on steeper ground.Sidepulls/flat/angled holds - a few of the less crimpy routes are on other non-generous holds, sometimes as part of aretes or whatever, and training their usage, compression and pressure etc, will be useful.Steep bouldering power - a few rogue routes are obviously just bouldery bastards.

Ratho bouldering last week, that was mostly finger/crimp strength as far as the abrasively new holds allowed, with a bit of steep bouldering power thrown in. Ratho routes tonight which will obviously be general stamina but I should try to mix it up with some shorter harder things for fingers or steep wall endurance.